Hey guys! I figure we can start with talking about some of the biggest changes we're doing with the new version; we previously talked about moving away from "dark souls" style combat, as well as moving away from competitive "SC2"-esque RTS gameplay. We hope that this Scroll provides a bit more context to those statements!
-cazeoj
Splitting ARPG with RTS
Initial Design
At its heart; the initial gameplay design of The Rebellion was to merge traditional RTS elements with a soulslike third person combat system. With these tools as a base, we would try to create scenarios where the player can do complex interactions like create equipment for their forces, trade with other players, set up resource harvesting networks, etc. There were also plans for more complex hero and combat interactions, including abilities and interactable environment pieces.
Current State
- Complex interactions with your town like loadout creation and equipment crafting are tedious and APM intensive
- When you play in Third Person, it feels like you will lose the RTS game because you aren't macroing your town
- The minimap is absolutely a chore to control and read
- Camera controls in general are clunky and difficult to work with
- Hero combat doesn't feel compelling; although statting out your hero is one of the more enjoyable aspects in game, the core gameplay lacks variety outside of weapon selection
- RTS controls have all the things that make traditional RTS intimidating and unapproachable, while not retaining ANY of the precision that makes it desirable
- The soulslike combat does not have much skill expression at all, attacks aren't telegraphed clearly, there is no means to dodge outside of base movement, and the feedback for attacking is lacking outside of poise break.
Unfortunately, I feel like we've failed to deliver on a lot of these gameplay elements. A lot of these systems were in development pre launch, and then failed to get revisited after a slew of new problems with our game became apparent.
The game does have an identity and a somewhat fun core loop, despite the problems it faces. I also don't think the initial design is an impossible thing to fix; however I do think we can make a better game if we somewhat change our perspective and allow for a more immersive and enjoyable experience that blends the macro (RTS) and micro (ARPG) systems in a compelling way, as opposed to having them fight against each other.
A New Perspective
These are probably the biggest changes we'll ever make to The Rebellion, and I think they'll be the most controversial as well (at least so far).
The Big Changes
- We're going to primarily develop the ARPG elements as First Person instead of Third Person.
- No more minimap in RTS mode; instead there will be a battle camera and dynamic zoom options
- We're vastly changing the way "fog of war" works
- Combat will get huge changes with a focus on realism/physicality, aiming, and skill expression
- Town and unit management will be automated as much as possible, while still retaining player control when desired
- The Hero will have more options to control the army around him
- A general slower pace to gameplay, with more focus on survival and taking advantage of your situation in the level
I understand that with this in mind, and in conjunction with the extraction mechanics we talked about, that this update is starting to sound like a different game entirely. I would like to think that because we never reached what our initial vision was to begin with, we feel comfortable making sweeping changes to the game in order to try and hit our mark. It's early access, and unfortunately in development sometimes projects have to be restarted with a better approach.
The little things...
We still have a lot of love for this current version of The Rebellion. At certain times, like seeing your town at night, moving forward with your armies into a ruin; there is a certain feeling and magic that we want to convey, however it's just a fledgling of what it could be. We intend to transform that shell of a town into a bustling, living village by version 1.0.
Combat, First Person, Hitboxes, Armor
Current Hero Gameplay Experience
The world feels stale when in third person; there is hardly anything to interact with, and the combat itself is very janky. NPC's and enemies beeline toward each other unnaturally, and it feels jarring and out of place in third person.
At the moment, combat is pretty simple; you left click or right click to awkwardly attack in front of you; there is no aiming up or down. You can press shift to block, however it doesn't feel particularly rewarding. Attacks will roll against an armor rating, and depending on the weapon type and the force of the weapon, multiplied by your strength, your attack will do anything from deflect off armor to knock the target over. There are fun moments to be had, but it lacks depth and feels incomplete (because it is).
First Person and What It Means
The big question is, how will first person effect gameplay? Well, quite simply, the idea started primarily from an attempt to bring complexity to the original Rebellion combat : Aiming.
We had planned to add aiming into The Rebellion in order to add more diversity into the combat, however the problem of perspective kept coming up. As it turns out, it's pretty difficult to see where you are swinging a sword in third person; predicting the arc of a swing to land a head shot feels awkward at best, inaccurate at worst. Long story short, First Person let's us simplify the aiming question, gives us a clear perspective to work with, and will let us have interactions with crouching (and potentially jumping) that will feel more natural to control.
General First Person Rules
- We aren't throwing out the idea of having Third Person be toggleable; this will take more dev time, but if enough people ask for it we can deliver. Might help with things like mounted combat as well.
- We are going to try and use the change in perspective as an opportunity to add detail to the world on a small level; expect the realism of the sim to increase
- We will have to recreate animations; and how these animations fit in with our NPCs will be determined. It may very well be the case that units will have separate animation sets from the player; since we can control the movement of NPCs a bit better, these could be more elaborate
I hope that this change doesn't seem too drastic, and that you guys can understand the benefits of the switch. I know that this basically will do away with any last inkling the soulslike style we initially had in mind; however I think the spirit of that style applies more than the style itself.
The Nuts and Bolts of It
Getting down to it, what do we want to enable with the new perspective? Simply put, we want the melee combat to feel rewarding and more natural. We want to create a combat system that treats armor, weaponry, and footing in a unique way that goes beyond "% damage reduction" or "stun" debuffs.
Going Out on a Limb
The first thing we're excited to introduce is limb sensitive hitboxes, along with completely new hit detection for combat. Because you will now have the ability to aim your swings, there should be a reward in hitting targets where you want to hit them; there also should be partial effect when clipping arms, legs, or other pieces of equipment.
General Mechanics
- Hits on the head will now deal bonus damage, but will deal less force
- Hits to the body will deal normal damage and force
- Hits to the Legs will deal bonus force, but less damage
- Hits to the arms will deal less damage and force, but could interrupt actions based on force
Mi Armor
Armor will no longer be weighed toward a total value; individual pieces of armor worn will be rolled against upon impact of the limb. If you have full armor on, but no helmet, you had better hope you don't get slammed in the head as you'll likely die. However, if you have on a heavy breastplate and helm while keep your legs exposed, you may be knocked over from a hammer to the knees.
Weaponry Touchup
The weapons will retain a lot of their original soul, however we'll try to enhance the gameplay and make certain types more performant.
- 1H/2H Swords - Swords are in a weird spot currently where if you have not enough strength, they feel horrible. But once you hit a strength breakpoint, they become death machines. We're going to make swords have a guaranteed "skim" mechanic where strikes will not fully deflect until after hitting more than one target. Think of it this way : Currently if you swing your sword and recoil on the first hit, you recoil. With the new system, even if you completely deflect off the first target, your sword will glide off the surface of the armor and continue on to the next target, where it will do another hit check.
- Maces and Hammers - I feel like the blunt weapons are some of the only weapons that hit their mark in The Rebellion. They knock people over, they hurt, and they're a little slow. The mace/hammer will retain this style, essentially in the exact same form translated to first person. One of the few systems we really felt worked out was the poise/knockdown system; this felt fulfilling when played around, and I think with some work we can make it a much more complete system moving forward.
- Spear - Spears never really found a good niche; a defensive weapon but the game lacks complementary defensive options to go with it. Underwhelming damage, not much AoE, and little to no force made the spear a tough choice. The spear will become a precision weapon; with aiming I can imagine it becoming significantly more deadly. We also will add the ability to use the spear when blocking.
- Bows - Bows felt underwhelming when used by the Hero; we'd likely need abilities to play around it, as well as making it feel more impactful.
- New Weaponry - We want to add in new weapon types; such as daggers or halberds, when development allows.
Closing
This Scroll ended being a lot longer than anticipated (old version was at 2500 words and incomplete) so we're going to save the information on RTS mechanics for next update. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading!